en to. He treated his
people instead to pleasant little discourses which were as much like
Epictetus and Seneca as St. John or St. Paul.

Fifteen minutes was his limit,--eighteen at the outside,--weighed out
like a ration. Doubtless, Mr. Rimmon had his own idea of doing good. His
assistants worked hard in back streets and trod the dusty byways,
succoring the small fry, while he stepped on velvet carpets and cast his
net for the larger fish.

Was not Dives as well worth saving as Lazarus--and better worth it for
Rimmon's purposes! And surely he was a more agreeable dinner-companion.
Besides, nothing was really proved against Dives; and the crumbs from
his table fed many a Lazarus.

But there were times when the Rev. William H. Rimmon had a vision of
other things: when the Rev. Mr. Rimmon, with his plump cheeks and plump
stomach, with his embroidered stoles and fine surplices, his rich
cassocks and hand-worked slippers, had a vision of another life. He
remembered the brief period when, thrown with a number of earnest young
men who had consecrated their lives to the work of their Divine Master,
he had had aspirations for something essentially different from the life
he now led. Sometimes, as he would meet some hard-working, threadbare
brother toiling among the poor, who yet, for all his toil and narrowness
of means, had in his face that light that comes only from feasting on
the living bread, he envied him for a moment, and would gladly have
exchanged for a brief time the "good things" that he had fallen heir to
for that look of peace. These moments, however, were rare, and were
generally those that followed some evening of even greater conviviality
than usual, or some report that the stocks he had gotten Ferdy
Wickersham to buy for him had unexpectedly gone down, so that he must
make up his margins. When the margins had been made up and the stocks
had reacted, Mr. Rimmon was sufficiently well satisfied with his
own lot.

And of late Mr. Rimmon had determined to settle down. There were those
who said that Mr. Rimmon's voice took on a peculiarly unctuous tone when
a certain young widow, as noted for her wealth as for her good looks and
good nature entered the portals of his church.

Keith now having rung the bell at Mr. Rimmon's pleasant rectory and
asked if he was at home, the servant said he would see. It is
astonishing how little servants in the city know of the movements of
their employers. How much better they mu